Tribute of Appreciation to Vernon B. Jordan, Jr., a Son of Howard University School of Law J

Howard University Digital Howard @ Howard University

Selected Speeches J. Clay Smith, Jr. Collection

11-2-1992 Tribute of Appreciation to Vernon B. Jordan, Jr., a Son of Howard University School of Law J. Clay Smith Jr.

Follow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/jcs_speeches Part of the Legal Commons

Recommended Citation Smith, J. Clay Jr., "Tribute of Appreciation to Vernon B. Jordan, Jr., a Son of Howard University School of Law" (1992). Selected Speeches. Paper 150. http://dh.howard.edu/jcs_speeches/150

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the J. Clay Smith, Jr. Collection at Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Selected Speeches by an authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. . , '': I ''') .," " '--

HOWARD UNIVERSITY 2900 VAN NESS STREET. N.W. , WASHINGTON, D.C. 20008

SCHOOL OF LAW

~ribute of Appreciation to Vernon B. Jor4an, Jr., a Son of Bowar4 University School of Law By: Professor J. Clay smith, Jr. Howard University School of Law November ~2, 1992

President Jenifer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Wayman Smith, Dean Ramsey, Faculty, students, Friends of the honorees: I think that if Professor Herbert o. Reid, Sr., were alive today, he would have been asked to deliver these remarks at the Second Annual Law School Appreciation Dinner held here at the Cosmos Club. You see, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., and Professor Reid had a very

special relationship during Mr. Jordan' s student days at the Howard 'University School of Law. Professor Reid came to respect Mr. Jordan because he saw something in Vernon Jordan that the legal community in the State of Georgia chose not to see. Professor Reid saw a diamond in the rough that in time would shine through, the dark of night. Professor Reid, and Dean George Marion Johnson, saw a diamond that the Howard University School of Law refined and sent forth to strut in the marketplace adorned with Howard University School of Law's badge of history, dignity and integrity. The person that we thank this evening is one who had chosen his legal role models before he applied to the law school. Vernon Jordan came to the law with the fire of black lawyers in Atlanta-- Tribute: Vernon B. Jordan, Jr. Page 2.

A.T. Walden and Horace T. Ward. Walden and Ward were then, and no doubt today, remain the most outstanding lawyers that Vernon Jordan has ever known. However, it was within the classrooms of the Howard University School of Law that Mr. Jordan was imbued with the knowledge of the law. Professors at the Howard University School of Law told him that he had an obligation to uproot the Jim Crow laws that restricted so many like him. During Mr. Jordan's distinguished presidency of the National Urban Leaque, the sons and daughters of Howard University's law school watched him fulfill this duty to stamp out Jim Crow with determined grace and firm resolve. The appreciation of Mr. Jordan relates back to Mr. Jordan's mother, who from 1948 to 1960, catered dinners at the Lawyer's Club of Atlanta, a club to which no black lawyers could belong. Mr. Jordan helped his mother serve those dinners, ·and he has acknowledged that while he was impressed with the barons on whom he waited, that he would become a baron of the law and a leader of his people. Mr. Jordan no doubt used some of the money that he earned at the Lawyer's Club of Atlanta to pay his tuition when he entered the law school in 1957, three years after the Supreme Court decided Brown v. The Board of Bducation.

So, Mr. Jordan, your law school appreciates not only your good works and extraordinary achievements, we also appreciate the A. T. Waldens, Horace T. Wards, the Herbert o. Reids, Srs., and your t mother for helping to make the man that heads the transition team .... ,.t.

Tribute: Vernon B. Jordan, Jr. Page 3.

of the President-elect of the United states, Bill Clinton. Your law school appreciates the fact that you have c;:arried the name and the traditions of Howard University School of Law as a director to the board rooms of J.C. Penny, corning Glass Works, Xerox Corp., and Revelon Group, Inc., to name only a few if your several directorships. Because of the groundwork Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., and Ronald H. Brown, others will follow in their footsteps, not only into these board rooms, but to the room that is called the Oval Office. We sincerely appreciate all of the moral and financial support that you have qiven to the law school over the years. We

~ appreciate your advice and counsel on ways to make our law school a better place. We appreciate the fact that your law firm Akin, Gump, strauss, Hauer'and Feld, in which you are a partner, has hired our qraduates as associates. We appreciate the enerqy and the sacrifices that you have made for us and for the qood of the nation. We appreciate your wit, and qood humor and your faith in the greater qood that has sustained you. For these reasons, Dean Henry Ramsey, Jr., the law faculty and students of the law, and through them, Howard University presents you with a token of our appreciation.